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Background

Zurich is the largest Swiss city with approximately 350.000 inhabitants and a public procurement budget of over one billion Euro per year. The city is one of the most active Procura+ cities and has put sustainability as a specific target on its political agenda since 1998. A recent draft Guideline on Sustainable Procurement states as an overall principle that "all products and services that have to be purchased should comply with high economic, ecological and social requirements throughout their entire life cycle".

The city is subject to the Inter-cantonal Agreement on Public Procurement (IvöB 2003) and bound to general procurement principles such as non-discrimination and transparency which are also valid at EU level. 'Sustainability' is legally recognised as an award criterion and can be inserted in public tenders to specify the nature of the product concerned.

For the last 10 years, the Building Construction Department of Zurich (Amt für Hochbauten der Stadt Zürich), which is responsible for the procurement of the product concerned, has been developing and including 'General Ecological Building Conditions' as minimum requirements in all contracts on public construction works. This list of conditions includes green criteria for product materials and constructions, for disposal and waste management. When purchasing new products the Building Construction Department of Zurich department requires environmental product declarations that are checked by the Specialist Department on Sustainability Construction (Fachstelle Nachhaltiges Bauen).

Regent Beleuchtungskörper AG, the successful bidder of the product concerned (floorlamps), is Switzerland's market leader in lighting systems and ISO 9001 and 14001 certified. Currently, more than 80% of the lighting systems they sell are designed and manufacture on their own premises. The company has an environment policy which aims at reducing the use of non-renewable resources, recycling, waste management and awareness raising on sustainability issues. Energy-efficiency is regarded as a key objective in the production process and all products are composed of multiple units without being glued together. This means that individual parts can be replaced instead of the whole unit and the discarded parts can be recycled.

MINERGIE® (www.minergie.ch) is a sustainability brand and labelling system initially developed for new and refurbished buildings. MINERGIE® is an association, which is supported by the Swiss Confederation, and the Swiss Cantons along with the department of Trade and Industry. It is registered in Switzerland and around the world. The MINERGIE® lighting standard was developed in connection with the tendering process regarding Zurich's purchase of 2000 floorlamps.

To be in compliance with the MINERGIE® Standard, products must fulfil the following requirements:

• Energy consumption must be at least 25% and the fossil energy consumption at least 50% below the average consumption of the state of the art
• The cost must not exceed 10% of a comparable standard product
• Used products must be disposable in at least the same way as average standard products

This is one of a number of case studies on Green Procurement available on the Procura+ website